India’s Tryst With Destiny May Never Come
As voting begins, the world’s biggest democracy should realize that its rise isn’t inevitable and will require greater courage from its next government.
The BJP is riding on Modi’s popularity.
Photographer: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty ImagesThere’s one clear favorite in the world’s biggest election, which kicks off in India today and runs for six weeks: incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Buoyed by his personal popularity, Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party isn’t even pretending to offer dramatic new programs if it returns to power. Its election manifesto, released earlier this week, was a relatively uninspiring document -- a few populist promises to Indian farmers mixed in with a heavy dollop of hyper-nationalism.
What it did contain was a long list of claims about Modi’s record over the past five years. There was a faint but unmistakable tinge of smugness. A few more years of what we’ve just had, the message was, and India would be a developed nation.